Just seven weeks after launching, SickScience is already tackling a new category — hair.
The biotech brand has harnessed its hero ingredient, NX35 Growth Technology, in addition to garlic and wheat-derived plant exosomes to create PowerCycle Scalp Treatment Serum, a $58 serum that promotes hair density. It launches on the brand’s website on Monday.
“PowerCycle promotes the hair follicle’s antigen phase, which means they are waking up,” said Dr. Polen Koçak, the brand’s cofounder. “That causes both new hair growth and hair density to increase.”
Koçak pointed to the brand’s clinicals — after eight weeks, 100 percent of volunteers had an improvement of hair thickness and 90 percent showed increased hair density.
“When you look at the data, you can see that we work three times better — and five times faster — when compared to the published data,” said Tyler Heiden Jones, the brand’s cocreator. “As a marketer, when we were looking at developing the brand, I was unsure about jumping from face to scalp so quickly. But in presenting these studies and clinicals, I was convinced to throw everything I knew about marketing out the window.”
That approach will also define the brand’s product development pipeline. SickScience’s next product will focus on wound healing, for example, and isn’t specifically dedicated to tech-neck like its debut ShapeShift V-Line Jaw Defining Serum, or hair density à la PowerCycle.
“We’ve coined the term ‘popcorn strategy,’ for product development,” Heiden Jones said. “Normally, you have specific categories you want to build expertise in, but we’re working on such unusual science that we’re planting our flag in the ground, and our brand is about results.”
Heiden Jones’ philosophy on marketing the product is to distill the science behind it in ways that make the information accessible. As that applies to PowerCycle, “We’ve taken the biotech, which is basically rocket science, and then we have biotin, which is a hot ingredient. Everyone’s searching for it on Google, but we’ve structured and engineered it unlike anyone else,” he said.
“We’re science-led, but if you go to our website, we downplay it,” he continued. “We know science doesn’t sell to consumers. Results do.”
The brand is expected to reach around $2 million in sales for its first year on the market, according to industry sources. The strategy is working thus far, with the brand having sold out of its debut product — which only launched in February.
“At our last count, we had over 4,000 people on the waitlist, plus repeat purchasers in addition to that,” Heiden Jones said. “Customers are writing to us very upset that they can’t buy their second bottles.”
There will also be a focus on user-generated content, Heiden Jones said. “We have real people showing their before-and-afters,” he said. “We know the impact of reviews and of consumer testimonials. We’re gonna let that drive a great deal. There’s no better marketing than that.”
